Game info: Toji no Miko Wiki
Listening: soundtrack album (released digitally in Japan only)
Info
Here’s a mobile game about some fightin’ girl anime I’ve otherwise never heard of which was published (and partially developed?) by SQUARE ENIX. The music’s by Kazuki Yanagawa, it’s one of the first soundtracks he did after leaving GUST for the second and final time (he rejoined the company a few years after leaving the first time). I listened to audio extracted from this game back closer to when it was released, but I decided to relisten to the album version of this soundtrack today for some reason.
If you’ve heard Yanagawa’s work in the Atelier series before, then this soundtrack will probably sound familiar to you because it’s pretty similar to that. A lot of lighthearted music featuring orchestra or acoustic ensembles (piano, guitar, violin, winds, etc.) mixed with some electronics, sparser and synthier emotional themes, uptempo battle themes with a lot of feel-good RPG energy, and some darker and heavier boss themes. In other games he likes to cram a bunch of unnecessary time signature changes and cool chords into a lot of the tracks, though there isn’t particularly much or any of the former in this one. Some cool chords though! Plus I like his sound design approach and that’s definitely on display here too. For me this is a pretty standard soundtrack for him, nothing super fancy aside from a couple of tracks but overall pretty pleasant.
Recommended tracks:
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“Frustration as Tomorrow’s Motivation” has a prettily interwoven melody and accompaniment line and makes the stereo field feel vast
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“Phosphorescence” starts off hammering some piano chords with a syncopated, polymetric-ish rhythm
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“Time for Noisy Chatter” is some sugary electronica for girl talk
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“Reflection” stretches out the repeat of the opening piano phrase at the 0:32 (49:06 in the combined upload) by adding an extra transposed repeat and also slipping an extra beat in at the end, upping the anticipation of the return of the main melody
(track titles are unofficial translations by me)
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